US diesel dilemma

0:00Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Breakfast, where we cover the top news for investors every morning. It's always good to be with you today is Wednesday, September 23. I'm Julie Morgan. Could there soon be a ban on U.S. diesel exports? The Trump administration is looking into whether that is a feasible option. The national average of diesel prices has reached a record high of $6.53 a gallon. Secretary Scott Besen said the U.S. is examining whether it's feasible in terms of the overall refining capacity and whether a full or partial ban would work. Russia has restricted its own diesel shipments due to strikes on infrastructure and the war with Ukraine. Refineries in the Middle East have also come under attack. While a diesel ban could, in theory, temporarily lower prices in parts of the U.S., it would tighten supplies further in Europe, which is structurally short on diesel and relies heavily on U.S. exports.

1:01U.S. Secretary Wright and Interior Secretary Bergam have argued against an export ban. Wright said last week that a ban would lead to a glut of diesel on the U.S. Gulf coast and cause U.S. refiners to cut production rates which would lead to lower gasoline production. Many analysts agreed that an export ban could backfire. Another complication is that some regions of the U.S. such as the Northeast import diesel. If refiners' limit shipments are broad, prices would increase globally and those regions would wind up paying even more. Six flags entertainment is up 3.6 percent in pre-market action after jumping 5.4 percent after hours on Tuesday. The movement comes following a Wall Street Journal report that activist hedge fund Janna Partners is pushing for the board to immediately hire an investment bank to explore a sale. The activist investor was disappointed in six flags Q2 earnings which included a net

2:01loss that widened to $202.6 million from a loss of $99.6 million in the year earlier quarter. Shares are down 42 percent in the past year. Last fall, Janna and other investors, including football player Travis Kelsey, together required a 9 percent stake in six flags valued at the time at $200 million. They've pushed the company to make changes such as improving its marketing, refreshing its leadership and modernizing technology. I know you've been hearing a lot about Muse lately. Meta platforms is testing internally the use of a human concierge for its new Muse app that has rocketed to the top of the App Store. Users reported that Muse would use human contractors to play some of the phone calls that users ask of Muse. The news outlet added that some of Meta's employees raised privacy concerns about humans handling the calls, given that sensitive information such as social security numbers or credit

3:02card information could be shared. The new app which has surged in popularity since it was released a few weeks ago is an artificial intelligence agent that acts on consumers' behalf and does things such as filling out forums, online shopping and more. Now if we look at a few other articles that are trending, we're taking a look at President Trump's disclosure for July, more than 1100 trades were made with a Microsoft in Amazon among the largest sales. Royal Caribbean is buying a 50 percent stake in Sandals Resorts for $3 billion. And NOVO has its eye on the hair loss market as it looks to diversify. On our catalyst watch, McDonald's will hold its highly anticipated investor day event. The update should provide investors with an idea on how management plans to restore US momentum while sustaining international growth. Investors will also pay close attention to updates about the new beverages.

4:04Aurora innovation will host an analyst and investor day in Dallas. The company will share how it is scaling at a critical inflection point for the autonomous trucking industry. Opto will webcast the opening keynote from its investor summit event. And MetaConnect 2026 begins. The two-day live stream showcase will include updates on the company's latest work in AI. AI-powered glasses, virtual and mixed reality and related developer technologies. Major product accounts and a keynote with CEO Mark Zuckerberg are also anticipated. On Wall Street, ethos early hours stock index features are little changed. Crude Oil is down 0.5 percent at 90 bucks a barrel. Brent Crude is up 0.4 percent at 99. The FTSE 100 is up 0.1 percent and the DAX is down 0.2 percent. And Japan's markets were closed for a holiday.

5:05Worthington Enterprises is on our biggest movers list. WOR is up 15 percent after the company reported an upbeat Q1 fiscal year 27 with revenue rising at 13.2 percent year over year to $343.9 million and organic growth reaching 7 percent. And a few items on today's economic calendar at 7am NBA mortgage applications at 9.45 am PMI composite flash and at 10am Atlanta Fed Business inflation expectations. That's it for today's Wall Street breakfast. Thanks for listening. To take full advantage of seeking alpha, join the highest quality community of real investors discussing stocks and ETFs at seekingalpha.com slash subscriptions. I'm your host Julie Morgan. Go out and make it a great day.